My son just turned 2 a few months ago. For those of you who have been following my blog, you know that I haven’t introduced my son to sugar or any of its forms yet. In fact, his first birthday cake was quite a task since I made it with only the few ingredients he was introduced to before he turned 1! If you haven’t already seen the recipe for that cake, you can check it out here.
Now that he was going to turn 2, I wanted to bake a different cake for him, but without the refined flour or white sugar. Thats why I decided on carrot cake and used as little honey as I could to sweeten the cake. I must say, what I ended up with was melt in the mouth delicious! Here’s how my cake turned out:
Before you begin making the cake, there is some prep work that you will have to do to get some of your ingredients ready. However, this prep work can be done even a few days in advance so that on the day you want to bake the cake – you have everything ready to go!
Prep 1: Applesauce
You can use store bought applesauce but I made my own homemade version. I cut up 1 apple (after removing the core) into 8 pieces and boiled it for 5 minutes in the microwave. Once it cooled, I discarded the peel and coarse blended the pulp into a thick puree which I used as the applesauce in this recipe. Freeze the applesauce till you decide to use it.
Prep 2: Grated carrots
The ideal carrots to use for this recipe are the long red ones (you might get good results with the orange carrots too but I haven’t personally tried using those yet). Wash the carrots well and dry them before you begin grating. Peel and grate them fine. You might need about 4-5 carrots (depending on the size) for 1 and 1/2 packed cups. Store the grated carrots in an airtight container in the freezer till the day of baking.
Prep 3: Toasted powdered walnuts
On a flat bottomed skillet, toast about 1/2 cup of walnuts on a low flame while constantly flipping to ensure that no part of the walnut blackens. When the walnuts develop a brownish color, turn off the flame and cool the walnuts. Once cool, coarse blend. Set aside 2-3 tablespoons of the fine walnut dust in a separate container to use as garnish. Keep the coarse pieces and the rest of the powder for the cake. Keep it in the fridge till ready to use.
Prep 4: Frosting (optional)
Personally, everyone who tasted this cake said they would enjoy it just as much without the frosting. But what’s a birthday cake without frosting right? I made the frosting a day before baking the cake by beating together 250g plain cream cheese, 200g unsalted butter at room temperature and 1 tsp vanilla essence. Add in 1-2 tbsp of honey and continue whisking. If the frosting is too runny, add a little more butter. The frosting should taste more salty than sweet so that it balances out the flavors in the cake.
Recipe:
1 1/2 packed cups of peeled and grated carrots
1/2 cup toasted powdered walnuts
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
2 eggs
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup rice bran oil or olive oil
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 cup homemade applesauce
Mix together all the dry ingredients in a medium sized bowl i.e. the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon and set aside.
In a larger bowl, beat the eggs on high speed for about 1 minute or till they appear foamy. Add in the honey and beat again for 2 minutes followed by the oil, vanilla essence and applesauce.
Add the dry ingredient mix to this bowl while whisking continuously till you get a uniform mixture. Now, using a spatula, fold in the carrots and the walnuts. Do not use a whisk or a beater for this.
Bake at 350˚F for 30-40 minutes or until a knife inserted into the cake comes out clean. If the cake is still not done, continue baking in 3-5 minute increments.
Remove the cake from its mould and let it cool COMPLETELY before frosting. This is important as the frosting will melt and become runny if the cake is even slightly hot. In fact, if you plan to serve this cake cold, you can even put the cake in the fridge and cool it before frosting.
This cake recipe was such a hit that I had to bake a second batch for my family since there was none left from the first cake. I baked the second batch as cupcakes and we had a little “frosting party” with everyone’s artistic side coming out. Here’s what it looked like!
Choose Healthy, Be Happy 